Bega Cheese’s long awaited takeover of the Vegemite brand was delayed on Friday by a global cyber attack.
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In a statement to the stock exchange on Thursday night, Bega Cheese said the acquisition of Mondeléz International’s Australia and New Zealand grocery and cheese business scheduled for Friday was “likely to be delayed as a result of the outage of Mondeléz global IT network”.
Last week Mondeléz was revealed to be one of many companies across Australia to fall victim to a ransomware attack linked to the so-called ‘Petya’ virus.
The cyber attack put local companies, services and individuals at risk of having their files locked and held to ransom if systems became infected with the virus.
“Bega Cheese and Mondeléz IT teams are working together to ensure that the delay is minimised,” the Bega Cheese statement read.
On Monday, Bega Cheese executive chairman Barry Irvin said the company was remaining positive, and the IT teams were “making good progress”.
“The staff are all keen to get on with it,” he said.
Last week’s attack shut down all of Mondeléz’s IT systems, reportedly affecting the Cadbury factory it runs in Hobart.
In a statement, Mondeléz said the company has hired outside specialists, including IT partners and global cyber security agencies and experts to deal with the incident and safeguard their systems for the future.
“While there is still work to be done, we continue to restore functionality to a number of key systems and remain focused on executing business continuity plans,” the company said.
“We are dedicated to delivering our products to customers and minimizing disruptions in the interim.
“We will work closely with customers and business partners as we continue to normalize our operations.”
Bega Cheese’s $460million Mondeléz deal, includes taking ownership of brands including Vegemite, ZoOsh and Bonox – and other products using the Kraft brand under license such as peanut butter, nut spreads and processed cheese.
Bega shares hit $6.78 on Monday, and have risen by more than 40 per cent this year.
In the build up to Friday’s scheduled acquisition, the company initiated a $160million capital raising, and sold an infant formula plant and spray dryers to Mead Johnson for $200million.
